Page 25 of Call of the Blood

“Damn it! I told her she couldn’t be doing that!” Lucas roared. “I told her to tell him everything!”

“You go deal with that,” Callahan said, almost indulgently, almost like a grandpa telling his children to discipline the grandchildren.

“Thank you, sir.” There was stomping, and a door slammed.

“He’ll handle her, so⁠—”

“He said they met at work, and she claimed he works for the pack,” I continued.

“What are you asking, Miss Everly?” Callahan said coolly.

“Did you hire my brother on purpose? Does he work for your pack?”

“Yes,” he answered. That made me furious once again. “But the building is only humans. If Lexi met him through work, she would have been doing a delivery from a different office. It was unintentional that he would have ever known about the werewolves that signed his paycheck. He doesn’t actually work for my pack. He works for a business that my pack has a controlling hand in. But he services humans with human needs and nothing that would be considered official for the pack.”

“Why did you⁠—”

“Because you didn’t do anything to handle his protection,” Callahan said simply. “I had already done a background check on you because you worked near my werewolves, so when I saw his name, I realized who he was easily enough. Saw you had no one here tailing him; he was living in normal human accommodations, and at the time, it seemed like you had no contact. I decided to keep him close. Better me than one of Alexius’ enemies.

“He was also qualified for the job, so even before I recognized the name, everyone underneath me had him at the top of the list to hire. You being related to him would have actually lost him the job if I had considered it in the other direction. But you helped my werewolves in Alaska, so I thought I could help with your brother. He’s paid well, and if he misses work, we can investigate. If anything ever happened, we would have reached out immediately. Though… I didn’t know he was dating Lexi. It seems like that bomb was waiting to go off on all of us, thanks to her not wanting to disclose what she was.”

“He doesn’t want anything to do with the supernatural,” I said softly.

“That’s something both of you are going to have to come to terms with. He grew up with the supernatural. He’s never really getting out. Certainly not now if he still wants to be a family with you. If you really wanted to keep him away from the supernatural, you wouldn’t be in Los Angeles on vacation to see him, painting a giant target on his back. Not that he didn’t already have one. I’ve been hearing rumors about how you pissed off ancients in New York, and Alexius already has enemies. He doesn’t really need to make more for someone to start being concerned about people near him.”

My hand was shaking.

“We’ll handle Lexi. She’s young and still has all the old nursery rhymes and warnings about vampires in her head and has never been too close to one her age. She can’t force you out of L.A. or away from your brother. You have the prior claim over Declan.” Callahan hummed as I heard the scribbling of pen on paper in the background of the call. “That should be everything. I’ll send Lucas’s information to Alexius for you. From here on, you can contact him about problems with his daughter.” He made a noise, and some werewolf in the background growled softly. “Alexius, can you hear me?”

“I can,” Alexius said softly.

“Please make sure your keyboard warrior genius doesn’t break my stuff because of this.”

“I have her laptop already.”

“Thank you. Have a nice evening, both of you.”

Callahan hung up on us.

“What the hell was that last part about?” I hissed, indignant.

“He knows what you can do. He probably quickly let another werewolf know to make sure their digital security was secure, then asked me to make sure you couldn’t get any small revenge on him, which would have been uncalled for. Nothing he said was a lie, and he’s dealing with Lexi.”

“He hired my brother.”

“And we should be grateful. Better him than Maria. He will never feel the need to use Declan against you. He just needs to go to Isaiah or Maria and make a request.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because there is nothing he could want from you that would serve him to help the werewolves in such a big way that he would risk my wrath,” Alexius answered, finally moving his hand from my laptop. “Which is why you will not act against him and break his things, as he so aptly put it. While your beautifully hot temper is useful when it comes to killing vampires, it's not useful here. Supernatural politics, and the structure of our world revolves around being polite to the right people. Callahan and Corissa are two of those people.”

“And Isaiah and Maria, right?”

“Yes.” Alexius leaned down. “And me. I’m one of those people.”

“What would you do?” I asked, unable to look away from him.

“I’d wipe him and his best werewolves off the face of the Earth if the offense was great enough. He knows I wouldn’t care if Corissa was my enemy afterward. He knows I wouldn’t care if it sent the werewolves into a downward spiral of chaos. So no, he would never act against me. He doesn’t have a reason to, and the repercussions would outweigh what he could possibly earn. He’ll always be polite with you because you are an extension of me. I’ve made it very clear to all of them that I protect you.”